Friday, January 23, 2015

Interviewing My Mother (Draft Five)

(The formatting is weird here)

Memories fade just like scarsthat decorate the skinAt first they are red and uglybut over time they lose their venomand change into a thin, white lineAnd when people ask where you gotSuch a testament of strength You can hardly remember

The same can be said for rememberingSomeone that you lovedSomeone you still loveEven when you can't rememberJust what their voice soundED likeOr what color they wore the most

The little things you took knowing for grantedThe little things that are easy to forgetEven when they made up your motherYou still forget them

When asking my family for memoriesTheir answers do surprise youFor a lot of their answers are the sameIt is funny what people do rememberOnce a person is gone

My cousin, Jenny, fondly recallsGrowing up with my motherRemembering all the good times they hadand the bad

When I asked her what her favorite was
she spoke of having her surgery“I remember the doctor askingjust who ‘Bonnie’ wasI had no idea why he askingbut all I had been saying while I going under was“Don’t leave me and don’t let go of my hand”When I woke up, nobody was therebut my hand had been closed As if I had been holding someone’s handonly your mom was no longer thereshe couldn't have been. “

My Uncle John thought of the times spent together relaxing on the farm, sitting around the bonfireThe sounds of animals piercing the nightMy mother's other childrenand his nieces and nephewsThey would ride the quads during the dayand put on a haunted hayride at nightAll the neighbors would come and join inIt was a fun time for all

I could have asked my mother a lotAsked about her favorite memoriesOr how she felt as she brought life into the worldNot only for me and my siblingsbut for the horse that was born on our farmthe one whose placenta sack she helped removeor all of the animals she gave a second chance togiving them a place to be fed and lovedAfter hearing from so many othersIt was finally her time to speak

But I had a smile on my face,when you got home from school that dayMy new crown of glory rested on my head,A new testament to our own mortalityIt was an unexpected surprise thatwasn’t unexpected at all

There were five of your - three of blood, two of lovemy beautiful childrenYou were only newly ripped from the womb when,you learned the lesson of deathA lesson I taught you

But my life has meaning, how could it not?I had all I wanted in lifeMy dreams fulfilled, my lover, my kinAnd most importantly of allI had you

It just wasn’t enough to live for

But once you got right down to itDying wasn’t so bad - once you got past the griefMy body, it ached. Walking became difficultYour grandmother, who was aged herselfBecame my crutch, carrying me, leading meeven to the bathroomA simple task, I could no longer do

How could I fight it any longer? My brain deteriorated fleeting memories of better timestormenting my body“Go wash, you’re dirty” I’d saythough you had just showeredWords I did not mean
A world I no longer comprehended
Oh my body….how heavy it feltEven after losing my breastmy body hung like stone

But we still had fun

Your grandmother would stand beside meinappropriately grabbing my breastthe one that was no longer therebut we laughed and laughedfor it was funny and naughtyand if we couldn’t poke fun at the situationI’d be dying in a different way

For two years I fought,and then I was clearedMy body was healingI could finally move onI made jokes, I lightened the mood
I talked about how my new breastswould be bigger than yoursbut it wasn’t in the cards not for youand not for me

How could I go through it again?I would have been on chemo for lifeand radiation for sure

A red, shell of a person
but I didn’t have it in me, not this timeIt was just too much

I withered away before your eyesA rose fighting for lifein the clutches of winter

I wish i could say I had a glorious endOne filled with trumpets and singersA real menagerie, but it wasn’tIt was in the living roomSurrounded by family, yet confined to my bedIt was where you found out what it truly feltto die”